The white paper, “Effective Asset Disposition,” offers insight to benchmarks and best practices based on strategies of leading national automotive wholesale remarketers.

The paper notes that credit union lending and collections teams must view asset disposition as an integral component of the lending cycle, measuring their disposition results against benchmarks established by industry experts, CUDL said.

Vehicle repossessions for U.S. credit unions reached $317 million in 2008, but have continued to improve over the last couple of years, according to CUDL. In the last year, credit unions have reduced the volume of repossessed vehicles, as the quantity and dollar volume has declined by 16% to just under $145 million.

The credit union average value per repossessed vehicle was $10,161 at the end of the second quarter of 2012, CUDL said. The white paper notes that nearly 75% of credit union repossessed vehicles are valued from $5,000 to $20,000, and as a result, credit unions need to enact procedures that make disposition of these assets more efficient, timely and cost effective.

CUDL said the white paper also reveals that credit unions need to benchmark the performance of their asset disposition programs against key metrics that are commonly used by top performing remarketing companies, including days-to-sale, tracking retention rates at auction, tracking the number of bidders at auction, monitoring fees paid to auction providers and third-party remarketing services.

The white paper points out that credit unions should view asset disposition as a key risk mitigation component of the lending cycle, critical to optimizing the performance of a credit union’s auto loan portfolio, according to CUDL.

Credit unions can request a copy of CUDL’s white paper on the CUSO’s website.